


Won't Be Graceful

by APgeeksout



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Gen, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 03:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2798609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a long, long time since he's done this.  Even though he doesn't feel it most days - doesn't feel it tonight in particular, with his skin too tight and his heart too loud and his veins too full of poison - he's a long way from that dumbshit kid, scoring up the skin over his hip, hidden under even the skimpiest of his ring gear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Won't Be Graceful

**Author's Note:**

> For the square "self-harm" in Round 5 of hc_bingo. 
> 
> Title snagged from The Glorious Sons' "Shapeless Art".

The too-bright bulbs of the bathroom catch on the place where the blade tapers down to a keen, smooth edge, flashing a cold flare of light into his eyes. Even as the metal warms against his skin, his hand shakes around the blade, fingertips cold and tingling, grip gone as fuzzy as the room around him and the world outside it.

He tries to remember if his hands used to be steadier. Can't. (Doesn't know why he cares, either. What he thought it was going to mean if he could dredge up evidence that he used to be more purposeful about it. Or confirmation that he's always been exactly this weak.) 

It's been a long, long time since he's done this. Even though he doesn't feel it most days - doesn't feel it tonight in particular, with his skin too tight and his heart too loud and his veins too full of poison - he's a long way from that dumbshit kid, scoring up the skin over his hip, hidden under even the skimpiest of his ring gear. 

Hasn't had to do it for himself for a long time. Used to be, he could just show up for work, step into the ring, and count on someone, anyone, everyone else to do it for him. Give him something to feel, to hang onto, to narrow the whole world into one sharp, still point of focus. Every piece of hardware, cutlery, broken glass, barbed wire pulling him out of himself, if only for the space of a match or a minute. All of them leaving lines on him that he didn't have to cover up; marks that, even now, he wears like fucking medals. _This is where I come from; best be real fucking sure you want to follow me back there._

Even in Florida, where there wasn't supposed to be too much color, there was still Regal, doling out the hurt almost (but never quite just) as often as he made him need it. And then, there had been the big stage, and The Shield, and for a little while he hadn't needed it so badly. 

It hadn't been easy - he's never been wired for _easy_ where other people are concerned, and he knows better than to trust it even when it does come around - but it had been doable, staying in the moment with them. Seth's grin conspiratorial, and almost as predatory as his own. Roman's hand on the back of his neck gentler than anything that lethal should be able to manage. All three of them dominating, carrying titles, walking around feeling satisfied, fitting together like the pieces of a whole. 

There'd been a heft and a steadiness to it that'd anchored him almost as well as a fresh slice. But Dean's anchor is Seth's dead weight; he's cut them loose and Dean is unmoored these days. 

Roman is still here; swears he's not going anywhere. Dean's both relieved and terrified to realize that he believes him. Roman will be here for Dean to put his back against. Roman will be hit by the shrapnel when Dean self-destructs. 

If he asked, he knows that Roman would try to give him what he needs. But Roman isn't broken, not in this way at least. Trying to understand, he'd just end up hurting on Dean's behalf. Pain that'd be useless to them both. 

Counterproductive. 

“Unstable” isn't all gimmick; this is fucked up and he knows it, always has. He also knows how to use it, manage it, contain it so that it contaminates the few good things he's managed to scratch together as little as possible. The Lunatic Fringe is more pragmatic than the announce-table gives him credit for. 

So now, while Roman is out on a mission for takeout, he steps off of memory lane and digs the razor into the flesh of his thigh, just deep enough to break the skin, wake his nerves, start a long, thin line of blood welling over tensed muscle. 

He needs this. All of it: the bite of the razor, the rush of blood sudden and hot, the faint sting that won't desert him until it heals. 

The world narrows to the single point where the blade has opened him up, where some of the fog and wrongness flows out of him along with the bright, clean beads of his blood. It's good, but still not quite enough. With a breath that shudders in his throat, he makes two new cuts, shallow and parallel to the first. 

One bonus of wrestling in jeans: hardly anyone will see or notice the neatness of the fresh lines he incises on himself. By the time they heal, fine and silver, they'll blend with all the other marks on his body. Just another shred of his past everyone knows better than to ask about.


End file.
